LANSING — The Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the 2009 murder conviction of a Kalamazoo man in a ruling issued Thursday.

James Leonard Lanier, 38, was convicted in October 2009 of first-degree murder and felony use of a firearm in connection with the shooting death of Portage businessman Bob Atkinson.

Atkinson, 53, was found dead with a gunshot would to the back of his head on Jan. 15, 2009, inside Precision Windows, the Portage Road home-improvement business he owned. Lanier was a subcontractor who installed windows for Atkinson's company.

In appealing his conviction, Lanier alleged, among other things, misconduct at trial by the prosecutor and a Portage police detective. He also said his attorneys did not provide effective assistance to him at trial and that the evidence presented was “insufficient to prove his identity as the killer.”

“Although there was no physical evidence directly linking Lanier to the killing and there were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, there was sufficient circumstantial evidence of Lanier's identity as the perpetrator,” the court stated in its unpublished opinion.